


My strange addiction

by jakrster



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst and Fluff and Smut, Canon Divergence - The Sign of Three, Johnlock - Freeform, M/M, Minor Mary Morstan/John Watson, One Shot, Smut, The Stag Night Fix-It (Sherlock: The Sign of Three)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-22
Updated: 2020-07-22
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:48:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25435660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jakrster/pseuds/jakrster
Summary: Sherlock was a keen expert on drugs. If any of them could have produced the exhilaration that John managed to produce in him, he would have found it. And, he would have, no doubt, overdosed.
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Comments: 8
Kudos: 73





	My strange addiction

**Author's Note:**

> So I wrote this OS because when I saw TSOT I was sure (I was hoping, mostly) that SOMETHING would happen. There have been several versions of this OS (a very dramatic one, a lighter one... Then, I decided to add some smut... Anyway, I hope you'll like it)! Full love xoxo

"Wait, wait..." Sherlock implored, as John burst out laughing beneath his pitiful face. "One more try!"

"No, no, no, no, nooooo." refuted the doctor by overstretching the syllable of the word. The finger brandished to add impact. "You missed. Now it's my turn. That's it."

The doctor tried to suppress a burst of laughter at the detective's reaction. He had raised his arms, shaking them, with a stubborn sigh, and scowled in the hollow of his armchair.

"Doing your drama-queen won't change the fact that it's my turn to guess." laughed the ex-military man.

Sherlock's long legs stretched out in front of him and became entangled with those of his opposite number. He tried to make beady dog eyes – the kind they made whenever John tried, when they lived together, to refuse to do any chores, crazy or normal, for him. The doctor couldn't remember ever resisting that adorable look.

"All right," agreed John, crashing into his own chair.

His hand searched for his usual cushion in the colours of the flag of United Kingdom before his foggy mind remembered that the object had been returned to the house he now occupied with Mary. Sherlock tapped his index finger on his chin, pretending to think, and suddenly his whole face lit up.

"Is that..." He stopped to laugh again. "Is that the King?"

John shook his head vigorously, hilariously.

"Sherlock... it's a woman!" he exclaimed, shaken with laughter.

"What? The King's a woman?"

The detective's eyes widened at this new information.

"But, no..." The doctor was having trouble getting serious enough to articulate anything. "She's a _queen_ , not a king!"

"And then they say the English are not feminists."

The detective reached out his arm to grab the glass of - he couldn't remember exactly what the liquid was, but it was amber and slightly sweet. Three ice cubes were lying at the bottom of the glass. Sherlock took a sip, which he had great difficulty swallowing due to the laughter that threatened to take him back at any moment.

"Well, now it's my turn." said John, putting his hands on the armrest of his seat.

"Nooooo." the detective refused, immediately, sore loser.

John _tried_ to look at him threateningly.

Sherlock's gaze lingered for a few seconds - more than necessary - at the sight of this rough draft of an authoritative John. He would have been unable to provide a rational explanation as to why this type of gesture, which he categorized as the remnants of the Captain Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers, gave him a sudden urge to obey his former roommate. When he used this more imperative tone of voice, the detective wanted to explore how far the doctor could order him.

This idea created a knot in his belly and he tried to hide his adoring smile under one of his hands. He coughed, as John's seriousness disappeared and a new burst of laughter followed.He hadn't noticed Sherlock's trouble - thank God.

"All right... " the brown-haired man obeyed, with a sigh.

Despite his acquiescence, he displayed a sulky air. Then he moved his body forward and put his head inside his palms while his elbows perched on the top of his kneecaps. His knees frequently collided with those of his former roommate. His position was a precarious balance and she was bringing out the childlike features on the detective's face.

"All right, all right, chuuuut." scorned John, in a pasty voice after several drinks of alcohol. "Am I... Hm, am I... a man?"

Sherlock squinted to decipher his handwriting on the piece of paper stuck to the former soldier's forehead. Mado – _who?_

He was terrible at it. He was terrible at this game under ordinary conditions, because it included having knowledge of popular and general culture. Things, which he didn't possess and which he had always found useless. So he would most likely suck at it with a high level of alcohol in his body.

In addition, John had expressly forbidden him to choose an element from the periodic table. Or anything that came anywhere close – near or far – to science.

The detective had grumbled that playing this stupid game would be his ultimate wedding present. The doctor had laughed out loud at the sentence, and Sherlock's mind seemed not to be conscious enough to reflect on the disconcerting but cute sound his friend had made.

"No doubt about it." replied the detective, abdicating on trying to get him to guess the name.

"Okay... am I smart?"

"Um..." Sherlock watched his friend as if he was trying to extract top secret information from him in this way. "More than the average person. Enough for me to..." His altered intelligence was having trouble finding the right words. "Enough that I don't want to gut you, like Anderson, every time you open your mouth."

John frowned in a caricatured way. He tried to put together the pieces of the puzzle formed by his best friend's words without finding any meaning in them.

Did the detective do the same thing he did? Did he write John’s name – or Sherlock's – on the paper?

Or, perhaps it was Lestrade? Or was it Mycroft? No. Sherlock wanted to rip out his vocal cords - with a filial, hidden tenderness, no doubt - from his brother every time they spoke to each other. It couldn't have been what he'd mentioned to him. Or... Moriarty? He wouldn't have dared, would he?

Even though the doctor could barely keep his body upright, he approached the edge of his chair, a few centimeters away from his former roommate.

"Am I handsome?"

The blond didn't know exactly why he asked that question. It had flown by itself, and he couldn't hold it back.

John momentarily forgot the question, abruptly distracted by a movement in front of him. Sherlock thoughtfully nibbled at the skin of his index finger.

The doctor did not have the reflex to question himself on the reasons that led him to find this common and _ordinary_ gesture so abruptly erotic. He simply knew that there, right away, he had a furious urge to put his mouth down in order to chew and suck the detective's skin himself. He had an impetuous urge to kiss those lips that pronounced such corrosive words. He wanted to sneak his hands under that shirt and discover the unknown territory that was the body of Sherlock Holmes. He moistened his lips as his pupils dilated.

"Yes." said the detective.

The ex-military man looked at him incomprehensibly. Having already forgotten his own question, he had no idea what Sherlock was talking about.

"Yes, you're handsome. Very." he said. "Well, I suppose..." caught up with Sherlock. "According to the -."

He interrupted himself, stunned.

The doctor had climbed onto his lap, crushing him in his chair. His fingers detailed every millimetre of the skin on the detective's face. Sherlock shivered – shivered, jolted – at the touch as he tried to find a rational justification for this sudden change.

And Sherlock's brain stopped working. John was kissing him. _John was kissing him_. John – the one who kept saying he wasn't gay – was kissing him. With enough ardour that he could believe that it was not accidental.

The detective wondered, evasively, as his body instinctively responded to the former soldier's, whether kissing John, while sober, would produce the same effect on his brain as it did at the time. Sherlock was certain it would. The new and intoxicating sensation from the doctor's mouth on him could not be produced by a substance alone. It was impossible.

Sherlock was a keen expert on drugs. If any of them could have produced the exhilaration that John managed to produce in him, he would have found it. And, he would have, no doubt, overdosed.

John's hands were busy unbuttoning his shirt as kisses rained down the detective's long neck. Sherlock moaned, which usually would have made him blush with shame if his thoughts hadn't been all focused on John. His body trembled as the doctor's teeth chewed the flesh from the back of his neck. Suddenly, the detective wished that John's incisors would create a work of art on his skin, that they would imprint themselves on his epidermis like a fleeting memory.

Sherlock's long legs wrapped around him to take away the potential and incongruous idea of leaving him.

However, John wasn't leaving. John was everywhere. He lived, already, in an - unspeakable - majority of Sherlock's thoughts. At that moment, with his body against his own, there was no room for anything else. Sherlock's foggy mind desperately tried to saturate his mind with him, with them, in anticipation of the inevitable moment when he would return to Mary.

It's a new state for him. He'd never felt this urge to kiss another person before John. And every minute that passed turned that desire into an unstoppable, consuming hunger. The two years he'd spent away from John had seemed to him the cruelest cravings he'd ever known. Perhaps, he must have been happy to be drunk - the foggy state of his mind helped him assimilate the reality of the doctor's caressing lips on his own. 

It was not a fantasy. It was not a dream. And, for God's sake, Sherlock had no intention of stopping. 

The blond man seemed to make sure that not a single centimeter of the detective's milky skin was marked by his passage. He felt that John, like the explorers, wanted to plant a flag to make the discovery of his body official - and Sherlock, my God, was more than willing to let him. The doctor could do whatever he wanted with him, as long as it wasn't to abandon him.

At this mere thought, the detective's legs tightened on his prey, possessively. John, who hadn't realized this new state of mind, associated this movement with an additional physiological response to his kisses, bites and caresses. He dipped his fingers into the dark tide of the detective's hair, while his mouth resumed a deeper exploration of Sherlock's pecs. 

John's tongue licked one of his nipples - _and Lord!_ \- his sudden hip movements against his own were clearing Sherlock's mind. He was just a burning mass of meaning, screaming out an unquenchable hunger from the man sitting astride him. He trembled as his teeth came to annoy the pink flesh. 

"John..." 

Was that flickering was his voice? He barely recognized it. 

Sherlock's instincts kicked in when John's irresistible mouth went south on his body. His fingers grasped blonde locks to straighten John's head to capture his lips in a feverish, hungry kiss. His lips cuddled, titillated every corner of that mouth he had watched so long since he had known him. The detective's hands migrated to the former soldier's hips and he lifted him up to sit him in his chair. This time, his slender silhouette overhung John's smaller body, without breaking the embrace of his mouth over his own.   
It was Sherlock's turn to explore. 

He stepped back slightly so that he could get rid of the doctor's usual sweater - Sherlock remembered being delighted to see him wearing one of his usual shapeless brown sweaters instead of one of the new shirts Mary had given him. Certainly the detective was not insensitive to a vision of a well-dressed John, not at all. However, these sweaters reminded him of _his_ John. The John before his fake death. The John he didn't need to share. 

In this vein, Sherlock began to chew on the ex-serviceman's shoulder, just above the collarbone, then sucked on the skin before kissing him and doing the same thing again. Encouraged by John's indecent panting, he marked him possessively. The mere thought that the doctor _was his_ , made him feverish. He put his lips back on the hickey to caress it tenderly for a few seconds before kissing John again. He sucked on his lower lip, which no longer tasted of alcohol, and then his tongue quickly uncovered the mouth and entered a ballet with the doctor's mouth. 

Sherlock loved how his heart was almost tachycardia in the face of this new set of sensations. He loved how John's fingers in his scalp formed a weak resistance when the detective tried to move his head back to meticulously kiss the jaw bone or the skin of the doctor's neck. 

Then he left that mouth and the brown-haired man had a satisfied smile when he heard a faint complaint as he pulled himself out of the embrace. _It was not a dream. They were drunk, but it wasn't a dream_. Sherlock bent down to get rid - at last - of the damn pants and underpants. The doctor helped him by standing up slightly. He threw both clothes across the room and the detective settled between John's half-open thighs. 

Sherlock's mouth moved towards his crotch, taking care to kiss the doctor's calf, patella, and inner thigh to... Once he got close to the base of the erection, he started this winding path again on the other leg. John's head fell backwards as he trembled in anticipation of his former roommate's way of foreplay. Oh, he wasn't complaining, but his patience was - _fuck_. The detective's tongue had just licked the entire length of his penis to take it in his mouth, immediately. John's hands searched his brown curls, clinging to them, as he repeated the detective's name in a disorderly and strangled manner, giving him a few hints, on occasion. 

A few useless clues, for Sherlock's mind - though fogged by alcohol - was able to deduce from John's reactions what he was doing right or wrong. And, the doctor was certain that his heart was about to explode. He chewed just the right amount, just the way he liked it, he cheeked enough to drive him crazy, and he... It was a new feeling, but his finger caressing his hole made him suddenly dizzy. 

"Damn it, Sherlock..." 

His mind was struggling to remember the last time she was offered a blowjob too... _Wow_. 

John tugged slightly on Sherlock's dark hair. Sherlock's eyes straightened towards him and - shit, the mere sight of those innocent blue eyes through those long black lashes would have been enough to make him come. The doctor hardly swallowed. He tugged at the curls again to get the detective's full attention and stop him. 

"Give me your fingers. "ordered John, in a hurry. Sherlock's eyebrows frowned, interrogator. "Come on, give them to me."

The detective obeyed the order and, without any hesitation, John began to suck each of them off, which took Sherlock's breath away. His irises became a thin blue circle around his large dilated pupils. The doctor suddenly remembered the gesture Sherlock had made earlier, which had given him the idea - _such a good idea, at the time, John was unable to regret anything_ \- of climbing into the detective's lap: his teeth biting the skin with his index finger. Immediately, John began a similar treatment on his phalanges. It seemed to work, the way the detective was squirming between his legs. 

Sherlock's eyes seemed to become deliciously wild with each passing second. 

When John loosened the grip of his mouth on his fingers, Sherlock resumed his caresses on the doctor's erection. One of Sherlock's fingers, now carefully lubricated by the blond man, returned to caress the nervous little hole. The detective stopped to assess his lover's reaction and began to penetrate him in this way - when he got his consent. John's mind, fogged by desire and alcohol, didn't even pay attention to the pain caused by the intrusion. He quickly nodded his head to encourage Sherlock to continue his exploration of that portion of the anatomy. 

John, who was now almost lying in his chair, grabbed a hand on the armrest while his toes curled up under the detective's caresses. Good heavens!

Sherlock's finger began to move in a steady motion and, still staring at it - which was erotically unbearable for John - he tried to insert a second, then quickly a third. The detective, still scientifically minded, seemed to want to experiment with every possible variation of movement and John was more than happy to be his guinea pig at the moment. His panting became closer and closer as the detective identified a sensitive area, his prostate, and seemed to take a malicious pleasure in banging his fingers against it. 

Still under Sherlock's scrutinizing gaze, he felt as if his pleasure was breaking down into several parts, which only increased the feeling that he would faint at any moment. 

When Sherlock's warm mouth began to resume his blowjob, the blond man suddenly pushed him away. 

"Condom..." he whispered.

"Are you sure?" asked the detective, as one of his thumbs drew circles near his balls.

"Oh bloody hell, yes, Sherlock, go and get the bloody condom."

"Where?"

"Wallet. Back pocket of my pants."

The sudden absence of the detective near him felt like an icy bite on his skin. John straightened up to see Sherlock search in an agitated manner for the pants that lay on the floor further down. He moistened his lips as he watched the strange creature that was his former roommate – and realized that he was still dressed. John, naked, straightened up and walked towards him as the detective had just put his hand on the wallet. Without warning, John's hands slipped the detective's silk shirt over his arms and back, while kissing his back.

Sherlock turned around as soon as the shirt fell on the floor. The anticipation of what they were about to do brought a new urgency to the kiss. Both men's breathing was painfully chopped up as John's fingers anxiously unbuttoned the detective's pants - making the simple task more difficult. When he succeeded, he pulled down the pants and underpants at the same time at the detective's feet, and Sherlock gestures with his feet to get rid of them. Their two erections came into contact for the first time, which brought a new concert of moaning.

The doctor's patience was at its peak. After Sherlock's treatment, he could feel his nerves on edge.

Their knees came into contact with the ground, as John tore the aluminum casing of the condom. He gestured to see who would put it on, knowing full well that it would be Sherlock who penetrated him - the very idea caused a delicious knot in his lower abdomen in anticipation of the sensation. It was all the more appropriate in view of the foreplay that had taken place. As he expected, the detective grabbed the condom and unrolled it over his penis.

"How do you..." the doctor began, stuttering. 

"When I thought about... I always pictured you lying on the table, or somewhere, and I'd fuck you or... Actually, I've thought of many ways to..."

Seeing Sherlock Holmes scorned was a sight not for everyone to admire.

"You seem to have given it a lot of thought." said John.   
  
The detective twisted an intense gaze into his own.

"I've often thought of you. Just like that, I mean. I've... Caressed myself, often, thinking it was you... You have no idea how much... The last two years have been hell... " Sherlock's hands came to frame the doctor's face. He touched it and looked at it as if he had an infinitely precious stone in his hands."At least I used to be able to see you, but... You weren't there. It was intole -- "

John picked up the end of that confession by kissing him for the umpteenth time.

"I want you, Sherlock." breathed John against those pink lips.

_In every possible way._

Enough waiting. Both men nodded, as John dropped to the floor on his back. Sherlock nervously sought guidance - or his agreement, he didn't know exactly. This was all new to both of them.

The doctor spread his legs while the detective's fingers began to caress around and inside the hole in the former soldier's body to prepare him properly. After a few seconds, John's panting and grunting resumed - and Sherlock's accompanied him as his erection stroked the doctor's - the detective penetrated him.

Slowly, so as not to hurt him. He stopped when John grimaced.

Sherlock's head bent down to come and lay butterfly kisses on his lover's cheeks, nose, forehead and lips. John was overwhelmed by this. He would never have thought Sherlock Holmes could be so sweet in this way.

The pain was only present for a fraction of a minute. The sight of the lunatic creature above him and his kisses distracted him enough to get used to the erection. The back-and-forth movements began again, delightfully. He forgot everything that wasn't Sherlock. Everything that wasn't Sherlock was gone. It was just the two of them.

A bomb could have gone off in Baker Street, he wouldn't have cared. Moriarty could have announced his return, he wouldn't even look up. The only thing that mattered was this man taking another hickey on his left pectoral and hurriedly penetrating him. This man who attracted him like a magnet. He had regained his prostate, it seemed, which made John moan and - _oh, fuck_.

Sherlock's fingers wrapped around his penis and began to caress it from top to bottom, and the doctor's teeth went into the detective's left shoulder. _Oh, shit_.

That was so good. _Holy crap_.

"Sherlock!" he moaned, as his whole body buckled and his mind lost touch with reality for good.

The only thing that bothered him was whether the detective had ejaculated, too.

John felt as if he had died and been reborn at the same time. 

.

.

His stag night had been a disaster. A spectacular slip-up – if you had to call it like that.

Sherlock and John woke up completely naked, wrapped in a blanket on the floor.

The doctor had panicked, but in silence. He'd almost died of apoplexy when he saw the two hickeys (how on earth was he going to explain this to Mary?) on his collarbone and pectoral muscles.

John had quickly catalogued his clothes on the floor, carefully avoiding looking at the worn condom lying at the bottom of the bag in the living room garbage. He had dressed hastily and left the scene of the crime - his crime of adultery. He had meticulously avoided Sherlock's sleepy, wounded look. 

The detective would get over it. Wasn't he a high-functioning sociopath? Yeah, he'd get over it. He tried to convince himself of that as he ran down the stairs to put some distance between this loss of control and himself. 

John had found no way to deal with this surreal situation properly.

 _On the surface_ , everything was under control. He had made a statement of omerta on the subject that Sherlock seemed to respect. Surprisingly. Of course, the fact that he refrained from talking to him or seeing him – and that he kept his future wife away from his best friend – must have helped. He also avoided close contact with Mary by invoking the custom before marriage. Although he knew that one day he would have to get married and she would surely see the remains of his night with Sherlock. He couldn't avoid this moment forever. However, John preferred to avoid thinking about it. On the one hand, John tried to soften the guilt that was eating away at him by taking care of her in small ways.

 _In reality_ , the former soldier was lost. Completely lost. He felt as if his world was collapsing around him and he couldn't do anything with this most difficult puzzle.

He loved Mary. That was a fact. She had been a lighthouse in the long night of Sherlock's absence. She had managed to patch up the broken man he had been when he thought he had witnessed his best friend's suicide. Without her, John knew he would have used his gun to commit an unconscious act to join this man who was at the center of his life. His world revolved around Sherlock, and without him, he no longer knew how to exist – even breathing had seemed difficult. Mary had taught him how to do it, patiently.

Was it possible to make these two people coincide in his existence? He had thought so. He had sincerely thought it might be. Until his stag night.

John had never felt desire for another man – even in Afghanistan. He had never doubted his sexual orientation. It was an immutable, stable thing in his life. He had always imagined having sex with a woman, loving a woman and growing old with a woman.

And the more he thought about it, the more the doctor found flaws in his reasoning. Thinking, turning every angle of the moment, John had remembered that he had already felt _something_ for Sherlock that he had assumed at the time was exhaustion or adrenaline.

He remembered a moment - as quick as a handful of seconds - at Baskerville, where for a very specific moment he had had a sudden urge to pin his lunatic roommate against a wall at the research centre. Sherlock had made a comment about the authoritative tone he'd used to help get them in, and _oh_. John had imagined he had the upper hand for once, and the sensuality of the thought had made him stop walking for a few seconds. It had been vivid, brief, _strange_.

John had also remembered when they were handcuffed together - when he hit an officer so that Sherlock wouldn't go to prison alone. When he had been tackled against the police car, next to his friend, who was under arrest, the look of thanks and dismay he had received from his friend was enough to give him the beginnings of an erection. It had taken him by surprise. The events had then followed quickly, and John had not had time to think back and analyze this unexpected physiological reaction.

And, ever since his stag night, the _Slip-Up Gate_ , he was unable to think of Sherlock without a myriad of memories popping up to remind him of that night. The ghastly image of a Sherlock Holmes, more than willing to be touched, was imprinted on his mind. A symphony of grunting that matched the tone of the detective's voice was constantly playing in his head. The sensation of the detective's mouth consuming the skin of his belly. The memory of his senses would drive him insane.

If John's problem had just been a physical attraction to the detective, he would have been able to handle it. He was certain of that. The problem, the real problem, was that Sherlock was running his life. It was the feelings that were tearing at his chest as he tried to carefully avoid his best friend. It was the everyday moments with Mary when suddenly the image of Sherlock invaded his mind. The image of the detective's head leaning against his thigh and John's fingers dipping into his brown curls was terribly tempting.

These images – these superficial fantasies – seemed to be etched in his mind, undisplaceable. He wanted Sherlock. He wanted to share a daily life with Sherlock. He wanted to sleep with Sherlock. He wanted to be able to kiss him whenever he wanted. He wanted everything about him.

And on the other hand, there was the fear that the detective wouldn't want that. It wasn't just fear, it was a real phobia.

There was his love for Mary.

Everything was getting complicated.

The closer he got to his wedding, the more torn he felt.

.

.

"John Hamish Watson, do you take Mary Morstan to be your lawful wedded wife?" said the clergyman, palms raised to the cathedral ceiling of the place of worship. "Do you promise to love and cherish her for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer, and vow loyalty till death do you part?"

John's heart was pounding in his chest cavity like a madman.

He felt as if Sherlock's gaze behind him was burning and scarifying his soul every minute the ceremony went on. Mary's smile trampled on his heart and lungs. He felt caught in a vice, caught in the middle. Would it always be this way? Was his life meant to be this pitiful masquerade? To be by the side of the woman he had sincerely loved while he fantasized about an impossible life with his best friend?

He was afraid of hurting Mary and phobia of losing his best friend a second time. The situation no longer made sense to him.

On the one hand, he felt obliged to say yes. It was what was expected of him. This was what all eyes, which converged on him in this Church, expected of him. On the other hand, saying yes to Mary was the way of reason. There was no certainty with Sherlock. There was a danger that he'd go back to anything. He might not want him. He might not want to get tangled up in John's feelings. There could be a second false death that breaks his heart. There were too many variables the doctor couldn't control or handle in that equation. Mary was an anchor, Sherlock was unpredictability.

However, where Mary was a gentle warmth that embraced him, Sherlock was a forest fire that razed everything. His whole life had changed since he'd known the detective. He had helped him get over his return from the war. Then, when he came back, after two years away, he had pulverized his life again. Sherlock was a hurricane that shaped his life as he wanted it to be and John let him, because he liked the way his life was turning with his best friend. The colours were brighter, the air was fresher, he felt more alive with him.

His fiancée's coughing suddenly brought his mind back to the present moment.

The medical assistant watched him with tears in her eyes. The woman was beautiful, really. Oh, my God! He wished he could have loved her to the fullest. He wished he could have loved her as she deserved. She was remarkable, radiant. But still... Still, it wasn't enough for him. He couldn't do that. He couldn't commit to that marriage.

It seemed so obvious to him now. At least out of respect for the woman who had saved him from himself.

The Priest was looking at him both angry and worried. Their friends and families were becoming restless. John opened his mouth, then closed it again. His stomach hurt.

"No." he whispered. He turned to her and took her hands in his own. "I'm sorry, Mary. I am truly sorry. You're wonderful, I love you, but..."

"You love him, don't you?" asked Mary. She could barely hold back a tear from falling on her cheek. "Sherlock." she continued. "You love him."

The clergyman coughed impatiently, but the couple didn't care. John nodded, slowly. The subject of their conversation, behind the doctor, seemed for the first time in his life terribly uncomfortable.

"You deserve a person who doesn't question his love for you. " explained the blond man. "You deserve someone who loves you completely and will never doubt you. You deserve better than me."

Mary's hand let go of his and she quickly wiped away the tears that were tearing her cheekbones.

"It was obvious... " sighed the medical assistant. "I knew it the moment he came back. I thought... I thought, maybe... At first..." Her hand went to caress John's cheek tenderly. "I am honoured to have been able to make you happy, John Watson." She took his hands in hers and brought them to his lips... "I know how to admit defeat in the face of a lost cause."

"I'm sorry... " repeated the doctor, tears appearing in the corners of his eyes.

Mary sketched a smile that sounded fake. Then she stepped aside and walked up the aisle. Alone. Their loved ones became agitated, and a noise was heard throughout the church. However, John only had eyes for his best friend, who looked at him with dismay and incomprehension.

For a rare occasion, Sherlock Holmes was caught off guard. He was swimming in an alternative he had not considered.

.

.

"What happened, John?"

The doctor had to run after Sherlock to catch up with him in Church ministry before he ran away. He had managed to stop him by putting his hand on the inside of his elbow and pulling him to face him. The tone of the detective's voice was anxious. A flake of emotion was coming into John's eyes without him being able to identify at least one of them, so intrinsically linked, together, did they seem.

He, who was used to directing his friend to the feelings of others, rarely managed to do so when it came to Sherlock's feelings because they seemed so primitive to him.

"You were there." sighed the doctor. "You heard it all. I said no."

The summary was woefully lacking in detail. He was awfully lacking in emotion - his whole head was screaming that he loved him, Sherlock. The words were there, hanging from his lips, but John refused to say them. Out of pride, out of fear. Fear that the detective would not want his love. Afraid of losing him again.

The doctor would have preferred to throw himself, unarmed, into a fight in Afghanistan rather than hear Sherlock tell him that his feelings weren't mutual or say goodbye.

"Yeah, I got that."

The doctor instantly noticed the impatience in his voice. It was such a familiar tone that often preceded an insult or criticism of his intelligence.

"Why?" the detective continued, stubbornly.

"Because... l..." stammered the former soldier, trying to find the right words. "Because I didn't love her enough to marry her. And then... You saw, you were there..."

"And?" insisted the detective.

The doctor frowned. He noticed the nervous twitching on the detective's face. Then John guessed that he wanted to hear his emotions. He wanted words about what he wasn't sure he understood. Sherlock needed facts. The brown-haired man knew there was a large margin of error when it came to this jurisdiction. It was John's domain, usually, emotions. Not his.

Beyond that, he didn't want to infer them. He wanted to hear them, to cherish them. He wanted those words to be meant only for him.

John allowed himself to smile at this reaction. He suddenly regretted all the hours he had wasted thinking about his relationship with the detective. It was so simple, really. For once there was something simple about Sherlock, it had to be him who made it complex.

"I love you, Sherlock." said the doctor, at last.

His best friend's features seemed to calm down immediately. As if he were a child and someone had just brought him a cuddly toy or a teddy bear. Words that no one but his parents had ever said to him before in his life. Words that had never meant anything to him, but that hummed to his soul when they were spoken in John's voice. His John.

The doctor brought one of the detective's hands, which he held close to his chest, and placed it against his chest, where his heart was.

"My heart has been yours for a long time. For so long, so long." said John, more confident. "I give it to you. It's yours."

Anyway, it already belonged to him.

The detective's eyelashes fluttered quickly under this statement.

"Are you serious? " he asked. "Because I can't stand you going back on your word. I can't take it, John. You have to be sure. There's no going back. I won't be able to. You keep telling me that I'm unbearable, that I'm a..."

"I've never been more serious about anything in my life, Sherlock. " he interrupted him.

Without further ado, the detective sealed that agreement, that promise, with a frantic kiss.

Yes. Even sober, his brain stopped working when his lips were placed on John Watson's.


End file.
